Is this only to detect presence when arriving or leaving the house? And also it can tell where exactly a person is I.e. 1st or 2nd floor?
Your understanding is correct
As explained in the documentation, you can try to use RSSI values to triangulate devices in a home, but the measurement error is large. At best, you might be able to semi-reliably estimate the position of a device (within a few meters) that has been stationary for 5 to 10 minutes.
RSSI values are not reliable enough to trigger any time-sensitive automation.
Thanks. Working nicely with the nut, a bit unreliable with just one pi and a Fitbit due to range.
Adding the beacons to the known beacons file prevents MQTT messages firing off for every new Bluetooth device?
No, but you can add devices you donāt want to see to the blacklist.
@andrewjfreyer
Hi, wondering if you can point me in the right direction?
I have 2 Raspberry Piās (RPi_1 and RPi_2). RPi_1 has HA, monitor and mosquitto broker installed, which has a username/password defined. And Iāve set /etc/mosquitto/conf.d/default.conf to be:
allow_anonymous false
password_file /etc/mosquitto/passwd
I can successfully āhello worldā message via mosquitto_sub and mosquitto_pub on RPi_1 with the username/password defined. With monitor mqtt preferences set to that broker, it also successfully authenticates and sends messages.
RPi_2 is not playing ball. It also has HA, monitor and mosquitto installed. I defined the same username/password and conf file for it too but Iām not using it as a brokerā¦I configured monitor mqtt preferences to point to mosquitto on RPi_1 (same network) with corresponding username and password. It starts up with these errors:
Unable to connect (Lookup error.).
mqtt broker went offline, or a password/username combination was rejected.
I canāt seem to figure out why RPi_1 monitor works but not RPi_2.
If I remove the username/password conf and have everything as anonymous, it all works.
Thx,
A
(PS. Iām basically trying to set up monitor on another RPi to send presence state to the other one)
So I have this working very reliably with a Nut mini BLE device - tracks very accurately and has suprisingly good range throughout my house.
A random question - when I restart my home assistant server, the devices all default to unknown until the status changes on the Monitor PI Zero and a new MQTT message is sent. Is there any way to request a current status from Monitor via MQTT for known devicesm so that I can get an update on restart via an automation?
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@ planetawylie
I have this issueā¦
Try putting a simple username and password. Iām not sure if there is a bug in mqtt.
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Usually this behavior happens when you have a special character in your password. Particularly bad characters are: @ : /
Do you have any of these characters in your MQTT password?
I would describe mosquittoās password handling as buggy, yes. My workaround to support the most users ended up forbidding a small, limited set of special characters.
Working on one, yes. For the time being, most users (including myself) send a restart message to each monitor node.
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Sighā¦I need to RTFM. Yes I have a ā@ā in the pwd.
Thank you
EDIT: Confirmed, fixed the password and everything working now 
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is it normal to see multiple process running?
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ps -guax | grep monitor
root 448 0.9 0.3 5680 3776 ? Ss 17:43 0:06 /bin/bash /home/pi/monitor/monitor.sh -b -tadr -x &
root 656 0.0 0.2 5396 2512 ? S 17:43 0:00 /bin/bash /home/pi/monitor/monitor.sh -b -tadr -x &
root 657 0.0 0.2 5408 2524 ? S 17:43 0:00 /bin/bash /home/pi/monitor/monitor.sh -b -tadr -x &
root 658 0.5 0.3 5672 3360 ? S 17:43 0:03 /bin/bash /home/pi/monitor/monitor.sh -b -tadr -x &
root 659 0.1 0.3 5680 2988 ? S 17:43 0:01 /bin/bash /home/pi/monitor/monitor.sh -b -tadr -x &
root 663 0.0 0.3 5660 3156 ? S 17:43 0:00 /bin/bash /home/pi/monitor/monitor.sh -b -tadr -x &
root 665 0.8 0.3 5568 3448 ? S 17:43 0:05 /bin/bash /home/pi/monitor/monitor.sh -b -tadr -x &
root 667 0.0 0.2 5396 2836 ? S 17:43 0:00 /bin/bash /home/pi/monitor/monitor.sh -b -tadr -x &
Yes, this is normal.
Thanks
After a few min HA stops receiving MQTT data.
I run debug /verbose and got.
monitor.sh: line 943: 031c8c8d94: value too great for base (error token is ā031c8c8d94ā)
monitor.sh: line 943: 1000520041a003b10RANDC2: value too great for base (error token is ā1000520041a003b10RANDC2ā)
I did a scan and on the thread and looks like different line from what [benjimatt] got.
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What version are you running?
version 0.2.151
updated to 0.2.163 let see what happensā¦ 
UPDATE: It was the same. I reverted to the master 0.2.150 been stable,
I have been reading down through this very long thread, and getting more confused as I go! I have monitor running on a RPi Zero W and itās generating MQTT traffic. What I wanted was something that would provide Occupancy detection - āIs anyone home?ā as well as Presence detection - "Who is home?
However the examples seem to focus on Occupancy or am I wrong?
Thanks!
I group the sensors or device trackers in home assistant. That answers āis anyone homeā.
The value(s) of the individual sensors/trackers answer the more specific second question.
EDIT - for more context:
If these are my sensors from monitor
sensor.andrew_first_floor
sensor.andrew_second_floor
sensor.wife_first_floor
sensor.wife_second_floor
ā¦ and these are the respective input booleans turned on and off via automation:
input_boolean.andrew
input_boolean.wife
We can group the booleans like this:
group:
name: owner occupancy
entities:
- input_boolean.andrew
- input_boolean.wife
So, now we have three āinterestingā entities in HA:
group.owner_occupancy
input_boolean.andrew
input_boolean.wife
If group.owner_occupancy is ON, at least one person home.
If group.owner_occupancy is OFF, the home is vacant.
If input_boolean.andrew is ON, andrew is home.
If input_boolean.andrew is OFF, andrew is away.
If input_boolean.wife is ON, wife is home.
If input_boolean.wife is OFF, wife is away.
Ah, OK I think I see a little light at the end of the tunnel. One other question regarding sensors, the examples use the MAC address of the device. But our phones are listed in known_static_address, so should I be using the nicknames in the sensor defininition like this:
# Pat's iPhone 7
- platform: mqtt
state_topic: 'monitor/ground_floor/pat_s_iphone_7'
value_template: '{{ value_json.confidence }}'
unit_of_measurement: '%'
name: "Ground Floor"